Letter to N. I. Bukharin and G. Y. Zinoviev

Dictated:Dictated over the telephone February 1, 1922Published:First published in 1959 inLenin Miscellany XXXVI.

      Printed from the secretary’s notes (typewritten copy).Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1971,

      Moscow,Volume 42,

      pages393b-394a.Translated:Bernard IsaacsTranscription\Markup:R. CymbalaandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2004).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

To Comrades Bukharin and Zinoviev

Wemust consider beforehand what people, preferably those
with a ready tongue, are going to represent the Comintern at the conference
with the II and II 1/2

Internationals.[1]We must also consider beforehand the basic questions of tactics and
strategy to be employed at this meeting.

Thelist of questions to be dealt with at the meeting should be
considered beforehand and drawn up in agreement with each of the parties
attending the meeting. On our part we should include in this list only
questions that have a direct bearing on practical joint action by the
working masses and touching on matters that are recognised as indisputable
in the official press statement of each of the three participants. We must
explain at length the reasons why we confine ourselves to such questions in
the interests of a united front. In the event of the yellow fraternity
raising mooted questions of policy, such as our attitude to the
Mensheviks., the question of Georgia, etc., we should adopt these tactics:

1) declare that the list of questions can be drawn up only by a unanimous
decision of all three participants;

2) declare that in drawing up our list of questions we were guided
exclusively by the desire for unity of action by the working masses, which
unity could be achieved immediately even under existing deep seated
political differences;

3) declare that we fully agree to questions such as our attitude to the
Mensheviks, the question of Georgia and any other questions being raised by
the II and II 1/2 Internationals, provided that theyagree to the following questions being raised: 1) the renegade attitude of
the II and II 1/2 Internationals to the Basle Manifesto; 2) complicity of
these same parties in the murder of Luxemburg, Liebknecht and other
Communists of Germany through the bourgeois governments which those parties
support; 3) a similar attitude of these parties to the murder of
revolutionaries in the colonies by the bourgeois parties which the II and
II 1/2 Internationals support, etc., etc. We should prepare a list., of
these and similar questions beforehand and also prepare beforehand theses
and speakers on various important questions of this nature.

Wemust find occasion to declare officially that we regard the II and II’/2
Internationals only as inconsistent and vacillating participants of a bloc with
the counter revolutionary world bourgeoisie, and that we agree to attend a
meeting on the united front for the sake of achieving possible practical unity
of direct action on the part of the masses and in order to expose the political
error of the II and II 1/2 Internationals’ entire position, just
as the latter (the II and II 1/2 Internationals) have agreed to
attend a meeting with us for the sake of achieving practical unity of direct
action by the masses and in order to expose the political error of our position.

[1]Thereference is to the forthcoming conference of the three Inter
nationals (the II, 111/2 and III Communist International). TheCommunist International’s active fight for the creation of a united
workers’ front against the onset of the bourgeoisie and the leaning towards
unity of action on the part of the working masses compelled the leadership
of the II ½ International on January 19, 1922, to send a proposal
to the Comintern Executive for convening an international conference in the
spring of 1922 to consider the problems of Europe’s economic position and
action by the working class against the onset of reaction.